1. Technical Field
This invention relates to an automotive wheel and/or tire cleaning composition for removing the dirt normally found on wheels and/or tires by spraying on and hosing off with water without scrubbing the wheel and/or tire surface.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Since an automobile is a significant personal investment, many people like to keep their automobiles clean and shiny with a minimum amount of effort, to help maintain the value of their investment. The wheels are part of the automobile that requires regular washing and cleaning to maintain the best appearance. There are various designs of wheels and some of those designs have areas that are hard to reach during the cleaning process. In order to help speed up the automobile cleaning process, there is a need for a wheel cleaner that can clean the wheel by spraying on the wheel cleaner, and then rinse off with water, resulting in a clean wheel without actually touching the wheel.
This invention relates to an automotive wheel cleaning composition for removing the dirt normally found on wheels by spraying on and hosing off with water without scrubbing the wheel surface. Since the wheel is mounted on an automobile and encounters a variety of environmental conditions, the dirt that accumulates on the wheels, is a combination of road soil and brake dust. Road soil is a complicated composition that can vary from location to location. Road soil can be divided into organic, which includes mineral oil, vegetable oil, animal fat, etc. and inorganic, which includes dust, dirt and other minerals. Brake dust is an accumulation of very fine participles of carbon black, graphite, metal, etc. that is the residue from the brake pad wearing on the brake disk. The basic composition of brake pads is polymer resins, inorganic fillers, metal particles, etc. Brake pad compositions are guarded secrets by manufacturers and vary by type of resin, fillers, metals and ratios depending on the intended service. Because of the complexity of road soil and brake dust, the material to be cleaned from each vehicle wheel varies every time it is cleaned. Another factor that needs to be considered for cleaning wheels is the material of construction of the wheel. This will affect the bonding force between the dirt and the wheel, which impacts the wheel cleaning performance. In general, the bond between the dirt and the wheel surface is not permanent and the basic type of affinity is Van de Waal force, hydrogen bonding, static electricity, etc.
There are varieties of wheel cleaners on the market, which are either acid or alkaline formulations. However, these products still have cleaning deficiency issues when they are sprayed on and hosed off. The concept of traditional cleaning detergent is to use lipophilic chain of surfactants, ionic and/or non-ionic, to adhere and penetrate the soil layer then detach soil from the wheel surface. In these typical cleaning detergent formulations, builders are used to help surfactants remove dirt and enhance surfactant performance on soil removal. Chelating agents such as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (“EDTA”) are used to complex with metal ions to improve cleaning efficiency. However, the cleaning power is still not strong enough to remove all the dirt when these cleaners are sprayed on and hosed off.
For example, a wheel cleaning formulation is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,733,377 which discloses the use of an acid fluoride salt in wheel cleaning formulations to enhance the cleaning performance. The acid fluoride salt can present a hazardous issue in that it can in some cases result in toxicity of the formulation.